Saturday, July 20, 2013

Annecy Wrap Up

Scenery is distractingly beautiful - you might forget you're in a competition.

Paragliders are annoying in the landing area.

Bad traffic in Annecy (but it's easy enough to stay around the area of HQ and avoid the traffic most of the time).

PROS:

Gorgeous scenery.

Really nice take-offs - both launches we used had nice steep ramps. The less used launch site has a much bigger area for setting up, but the actual launches are equally as good. Each launch site has 3 launch corridors so it's easy to get everyone off the hill quickly.

Hot comp officials with sexy French accents.

Organizers are very open and receptive to suggestions.

Reasonably priced accommodation. We had a great apartment about 3km from HQ that cost about 200 Euros each (for 2 weeks) with a full (albeit small) kitchen, big dining area and giant terrace.

Excellent food - especially in Faverge, a little nearby town where we found a wonderful French chef that made the worlds best risotto.

We didn't have the time (flew all but one day), but there's heaps to do at the lake - swimming, kiteboarding, etc.

Plentiful landing areas in most places where we flew. Most are beautiful and grassy for flying barefoot if you like. There were some iffy areas, but I'm hoping that for the women's competition next year, they won't be sending the girls in places where landings are scarce. On the bright side, it is confidence inspiring to see that I could land in places that made me quite nervous from the air.

There's a free 6030 waiting just below launch for whoever wants to scramble down there and find it ;-)

BOTTOM LINE: I loved Annecy and can't wait for next year. I'm trying to gather up a full US team of women, sport class pilots and rigid pilots!!